Fractal Axe-FX II Preamp FX Processor Review

“This thing is the greatest invention
ever for electric guitarists,” Dweezil
Zappa told Premier Guitar at last year’s
LA Amp Show as he gushed over Fractal
Audio’s new Axe-Fx II—the company’s follow
up to the very successful Standard and
Ultra models. While such a bold statement
might raise eyebrows among those numbed
by marketing hyperbole, no one could
argue that the Axe-Fx II isn’t an extraordinarily
powerful signal processing system.
It’s so capable that big bands like Deftones,
Megadeth, and Animals as Leaders have forsaken
massive rigs for a lone Axe-Fx II, and
guitar gods like Steve Vai and John Petrucci
integrated the units into existing rigs. And
remember—these are players who can
afford to have roadies carry backbreaking
towers of gear, and yet they’re so enamored
with the Axe-Fx II that they opt to leave
the heavy stuff at home.

In the simplest terms, the Axe-Fx II is a
rack mountable preamp and effects processor.
But that description barely scratches
the surface of what this thing does. What
makes the Axe-Fx II remarkable is that it’s
powerful enough to replace a lot of traditional
amp/effects/cab setups. It’s a major
improvement on the already impressive
previous Axe-Fx models on many counts,
as well. Two TigerSHARC processors
(versus the Standard’s and Ultra’s single
processor) run the new G2 modeling
technology, which generates twice the
processing power of its predecessors and
improves sound quality. In fact, one CPU
is dedicated entirely to processing the amp
sounds. Other upgrades include a larger
LCD display and a quick-control section
with X and Y buttons for channel switching
and four knobs for editing multiple
parameters on a single screen. There’s also
a USB 2.0 jack for computer connectivity,
which makes the Axe-Fx II a serious
audio/MIDI interface with capabilities
like re-amping and recording.

A Handle on the Axe
The Axe-Fx II is so feature packed we couldn’t
possibly discuss it all here. If you’ve avoided
multi-effects units because of their inherent
navigational challenges, I’m not going to lie to
you, the Axe-Fx II is even more complex than
most. But expecting a simple plug-and-play
experience would be naïve, and there’s just no
way that a piece of gear that many regard as
the ultimate guitar processor is going to be as
user-friendly as a Tube Screamer. But if you
put the time into learning how the system
works, you’ll find there aren’t many sonic
stones the Axe-Fx II leaves unturned. And
the hours you spend climbing the unit’s steep
learning curve very well may reward you with
every tone that has ever eluded you.

Navigating the unit’s myriad options
involves moving through a lot of submenus
and scrolling screens—and they all take
practice and time to get to know. Still, I
was eager to see how easily I could extract
sounds without consulting or printing out
the 178-page PDF manual. But without
direction even some very basic functions—
such as tuning—can be tricky. For example,
pressing the tuner button led to a familiar-enough
readout, but I had to consult the
manual to discover that the recall button
gets you back to normal mode. That said,
if you want to ease into the manual, a very
handy 60-second edit guide helps you take
your first steps. And a free software editor/
librarian makes everything easier to navigate
and use on a computer if you’re accustomed
to software instruments and plugins.

After investing some time in manual
research, things got easier. You scroll through
presets using the big value knob next to the
screen, and the four navigation buttons next
to it move through the presets either one at
a time (up and down) or in increments of
10 (left and right), which is handy if you
want to go from, say, preset 4 to 54 in a jiffy.
Chances are, though, you’ll want Fractal’s
optional MFC-101 foot controller when
you’ve got this many options to choose from.

Each of the 384 editable presets represents
a complete signal path of amp, effect, and
cab. Pressing the layout button takes you to
a screen that displays everything in the signal
path from left to right, as blocks on a grid.
You can change or rearrange components on
the grid, such as amps, cabs, or effects, and
wire things up in any order or arrangement
that suits you. The edit button then enables
you to open block menus and set the desired
parameters for each component. Once you
have that process down, operating the Axe-
Fx II becomes much more fluid.

Super Models
I tested the Axe-Fx II with a variety of guitars,
including a Gibson Les Paul Standard,
Fender Strat, Ernie Ball Music Man Axis
Sport, and Parker Fly Deluxe, as well as a
Mesa/Boogie 2:90 power amp and a QSC
K8 powered PA speaker.

You can explore models of plenty of
popular amps—including a Fender Deluxe
Reverb, a Marshall plexi, a Mesa/Boogie
Dual Rectifier, a Dumble Overdrive Special,
and a Peavey 5150—but there are less
mainstream amps, too, like the Cameron
CCV 100 and Carol-Ann OD2, as well as
original Fractal creations. There are also lots
of presets based on classic guitar songs, like
“People Get Ready,” “Still Got the Blues,”
“Cliffs of Dover,” and “Sultans of Swing”
(to name just a few), as well as wacky
sounds that have to be heard to be believed.
These include “A Clockwork Banana,”
“Intrigue [C Minor],” and “Horror Movie.”

I decided to start out by cranking the
Axe-Fx II ’s Deluxe Reverb model and comparing
it, back-to-back, to my own blackface
Fender Deluxe Reverb. In all honesty, it
had me doing double takes—the sound was
virtually identical. The trademark Fender
sparkle, tube warmth, and sweet breakup
were all audible in the modeled version.
More importantly, the feel and dynamics
were very amp-like. And a big plus with the
Axe-Fx II version over the real amp is that
you can very easily run it through different
virtual cabs—say, a model of a Celestion
Gold-equipped 2x12 or a 1x8 tweed—to
get totally different flavors from the same
amp without fretting over ohms or filling
your garage with cabinets of every size.

Clearly, the Fractal guys took everything
into account when embarking on their mission
to create realistic models—even amplifier
attributes some might consider less than
optimal. The Recto Orange, for instance,
had as much noise at idle as the orange
channel on my Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb. But
other high-gain models such as the Solo100
Lead, based on a Soldano SLO-100’s lead
channel, were dead quiet. This not only led
me to believe the Orange Recto fizz was a
deliberate recreation, but it also lent credence
to Fractal’s claim that the new G2 and
Virtual Vacuum Tube technology “models
the entire power amp including the tubes,
transformers, choke, filter caps and more.”

The Axe-Fx II’s other patches were great
jumping-off points, too. I tried the “Eruption”
patch using my Music Man guitar, comparing
it to Eddie’s original, and while a few
other variables obviously came into play—not
the least being the fact that I’m not actually
EVH—the Axe-Fx II patch was superb:
slightly darker and with less presence than you
hear in the recorded version, but an excellent
launching pad with the feel and reactivity necessary
to explore the nuances of Eddie’s style.

Ratings

Pros:
Exceptional sound quality and a true
amp-like feel in a self-contained unit.

Tone Clone
If you have a sound that you’ve always wanted
to recreate exactly using your favorite
guitar, or if you want to add the sound of a
new amp to the Axe-Fx II ’s library, there’s
an ultra-cool feature called tone matching.
It lets you input an isolated signal—it can
be an audio file or a live amp—and sample
the tonal characteristics. If you’re trying to
match a recorded sound you’ll want to start
with an Axe-Fx II preset that’s close to the
signal you’re sending. But once you’re in
the ballpark, the tone-matching feature frequency-
plots the reference signal alongside
the local (tone-matched) signal so you can
compare and match the two.

The Verdict
If anything can bring the rack back in
vogue, the Axe-Fx II will be the thing to
do it. It’s a complete, self-contained unit
that does just about everything an amp-effect-cab setup can do (minus actually
outputting the sound for the masses), and
it pretty much avoids the Achilles heel that
has long plagued many products of this
type—it offers the organic element of touch
dynamics. There is some serious number-crunching
power in the Axe-Fx II, and it
adds up to a wealth of tones that would
take a whole studio space—and a whole
lot of material resources most of us don’t
have—to put together.

At almost $2,200, the Axe-Fx II is obviously
still a significant investment, but the
price of just one of the complete virtual
rigs it affords would most likely cost much
more. Even if you just used the Axe-Fx II
for its effects, you’d have a phenomenal-sounding
and almost limitless effects palette
at your disposal. If there’s a downside to the
Axe-Fx II, it’s more aesthetic than practical—something about the typical guitarist’s
psyche just digs having a rad-looking amp
next to them onstage. This unit certainly
doesn’t have the visual allure of a road-beaten
Fender tweed or vintage Marshall,
but what it offers practical and adventurous
players alike in terms of sonic potential is
hard to put a price on.

New York City native Joe Charupakorn is a guitarist, author, and editor. He has interviewed the world’s biggest guitar icons including Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Carlos Santana, Neal Schon, and Dave Davies, among many others, for Premier Guitar. Additionally, he has written over 20 instructional books for Hal Leonard Corporation. His books are available worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Visit him on the web at joecharupakorn.com.

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